The Best Free VST Instruments - Wavetable Synth:

Audio production software for mastering, mixing, and music composing:

SQ8L:

Wavetable Synth -Back to the 80s

The free SQ8L synth by Siegfried Kullmann is a software emulation of Ensoniq's classic 1980s synth SQ80. The SQ8L VST features 3 digital wavetable oscillators, 4 envelopes and 3 LFO's. The emulation is very close to the original -in fact it is one of the best software emulations of hardware synthesizers to date. And this one is free! The sound of the SQ8L VST, based on the specifications of the original Ensoniq DOC chip, can be both digital and dirty or analog and warm. And SQ8L loads both SQ80 and ESQ1 SysEx files giving you access to a vast library of patches for this beautiful synth.

Additive Wavetable Synthesis

Table Synth by Angular Momentum is an additive wavetable synthesizer with separate control of the harmonics of the sound. This free VST plug-in features 2 oscillators each with its own overtone scaler, amplitude envelope, filter envelope, and filter step sequencer. The filter step sequencers are basically two very advanced LFO's making it possible to draw the exact shape of the LFO, allowing for some cool tempo synced filter modulation of the signal. The Table Synth VST comes with 64 patches and features a delay, chorus, reverb, and portamento.

Draw your own waveforms

Wavedraw by Angular Momentum is a free wavetable synthesizer that lets you draw, load and save your own waveforms. The Wavedraw plug-in features 2 oscillators each with its own amplitude envelope, filter envelope, filter step sequencer, filter cutoff- and resonance LFO's. The Wavedraw VST has a chorus and a reverb effect section, and comes with 64 presets aimed mainly at techno and trance production. There is also a standalone wave creator as a free download making i possible to convert standard wave files to the wavedraw txt format.

VSTi with Vector Synthesis

Augur by Antti is an emulation of the Prophet VS by Sequential Circuits from 1986 -the worlds first Vector Synthesis synth. Augurs 4 oscillators each get their sound from one of the 96 different waveforms. In the vector matrix it is possible to determine how loud each oscillator will be and to draw a path for the sound to travel between the 4 oscillators -letting them morph into each other. Unfortunately the Augur VST plugin doesn't support the drawing of user defined waveforms, as the original Prophet VS features. But it's still a very cool free VST synth, capable of producing some very interesting sounds.